


another name for "home"

by kythen



Series: many names for home [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Established Relationship, M/M, it is silent in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 05:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8476861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kythen/pseuds/kythen
Summary: "i just want to go home" said the astronaut.
  
  
    "so come home" said ground control.
  
  
    ‘‘ｓｏ  ｃｏｍｅ  ｈｏｍｅ’’ said the voice from the stars.
  
Kuroo is mission status lost and Daichi just wants to find his way home.





	

It's Tuesday when Daichi sees the news, broadcasted all around him on screens and smartphones, in the air and on print. The breaking news of the day is a mission to deep space gone wrong, the entire crew sucked into vast space, gone. The ship's name is Nekoma, just like the name of the hangar down on Earth next to Ukai's, and the pilot's name is Kuroo Tetsurou.

It was a normal day before Daichi stepped foot outside the supermarket. They had stopped by a dwarf planet for a quick refill, routine checks, and grocery shopping, the last of which had been assigned to him by luck of the draw. Now, Daichi sees Kuroo's face blown up on every screen possible, accompanied by the repeating words in bright red "MISSION STATUS: LOST".

There is someone calling his name, a hand on his shoulder turning him around as his hands slacken, bags of groceries spilling across the sidewalk and his feet. Something soaks into his shoes, crunching under his feet as he turns in a half-circle to meet Suga. Suga is saying something, his mouth dark in his pale face and his fingers digging into Daichi's shoulders.

Over Suga's shoulder, Daichi sees Kuroo, his face uncharacteristically serious, his hair combed down in an awful style to match his uniform right before he had his picture taken. Daichi knows this because he had been the one wrestling Kuroo's hair down, trying to get him presentable before he stepped into the photo booth and then laughing a minute later when Kuroo steps out of it, his fringe already poofing upwards despite Daichi's best efforts.

"Kuroo?" Daichi asks the screens, pixelated images projected onto thin air, endlessly looping through the members of Kuroo's crew, his eyes stuck on the words "LOST LOST LOST".

\---

"Daichi."

Sunday mornings are special for them because that is when Daichi gets to wake up to Kuroo and his hopelessly long legs tangled in the sheets, his feet pressing cold against Daichi's calves. It's even more special when Kuroo wakes up before him, like he does now, and the first thing Daichi sees after opening his eyes is Kuroo looking back at him.

"Daichi," Kuroo repeats, touching a hand to Daichi's face, his fingers smoothing down his cheek. "Rise and shine."

Daichi groans and shifts, his cheek rubbing against Kuroo's palm. "Just because you had eight full hours of sleep doesn't mean that everyone else has had it."

"Now you know how I feel when you kick me out of bed every other morning," Kuroo replies, grinning as Daichi glares at him through bleary eyes. "Not everyone is a morning person like you, Daichi."

"I'm not a morning person. I don't even feel like a person now," Daichi grumbles, shuffling forward and pressing his face against Kuroo's chest, trying to avoid the light filtering through the curtains.

Kuroo laughs and Daichi feels the sound vibrate through his chest. "I'm not even a little bit sympathetic," he whispers into Daichi's ear as he rolls away and Daichi hisses as the light hits his face. "Get up, Daichi," Kuroo sings, his voice still hoarse and off-key from sleep, "we've got places to go and things to do."

"I'm going to get you for this when you get back from your deep space mission, Kuroo," Daichi threatens, his face muffled into the pillow.

"I'll be looking forward to it," Kuroo says, rolling back to wrap his body around Daichi's.

\---

On Wednesday, Karasuno heads to the warp station with a shipment of adamantine in the back of their ship, illegally obtained and about to be illegally sold. It is a quick trade: adamantine goes on the Date ship, money goes into Daichi's hand, and both crews are off to completely different warp portals set to completely different locations in the galaxy before anyone gets wind of their deal.

At a fundamental level, Kuroo and Daichi's jobs aren't all that different, except that Kuroo's job is up in space, discovering new planets and meeting new civilisations, while Daichi's job is here, hopping from planet to planet, emptying out the back hold of their ship and filling it up with new goods, all just on the side of illegal. It's not that bad when everyone else in the galaxy is doing it and you have fourteen mouths to feed.

All the mouths are quiet today as they launch into the air and plunge into the endless night of space. The warp station they are headed to is Earth, once the only home for human beings in the universe, now a dead chunk of rock run through with artificial life support. The reinforced glass bubble encasing Earth comes into view as they approach, transparent tubes running on the inside of it and feeding into the lifeless earth. The planet is only good as a warp station now, a stop for people to pass through on their way to other parts of the galaxy.

Daichi had come from Earth, one of the last remaining human beings who called it home before he took off in a spaceship called Karasuno, its name and crew taken from a hangar of the same name owned by Ukai. And next to it was Nekoma, where Kuroo said he got the inspiration for his spaceship once he was declared its captain and pilot.

"Daichi." A hand touches his shoulder and Daichi sees Shimizu's face in the glass, her eyebrows drawn together in worry, smoothing out as he turns to face her. "You've got a call from Ukai. He said he was calling back about a missed call."

"Thanks, Shimizu," Daichi says, motioning to Suga next to him and swivelling around in his chair, his steps sounding out heavy against the cockpit floor.

\---

They don't get much time together, only Sundays, and only the Sundays when Kuroo gets a precious day off and Daichi doesn't have to be running his ship down for an emergency deal. He doesn't like dealing on Sundays but there have been cases and Kuroo makes up for it by sending him a hundred messages or so with picture attachments, which Daichi scrolls through and laughs at when he isn't flying their ship.

Kuroo lives on Mars and so does Daichi on some Sundays when he closes the front door of their home and puts his hand in Kuroo's waiting one, lacing their fingers together as they head out into the street. Mars is an old colony, one of the first claimed by human beings, and they say that it most closely resembles what Earth used to look like hundreds of years ago. Daichi guesses that is why Kuroo had chosen to live here out of anywhere in the galaxy, that and because it was the closest to Earth. Kuroo is a sentimentalist despite all appearances, which Daichi finds endearing despite all protests when Kuroo finds some ridiculous anniversary of theirs to celebrate.

"What do you want to do today?" Kuroo asks, swinging their linked hands between them as they meander down the street.

"Everything," Daichi answers, squeezing Kuroo's hand. It's been a while since he's been back here on Mars, even if he had to run through half the galaxy to get here before Kuroo set off on his brand new deep space mission.

"That's a bit ambitious when we've only got twenty-four hours in a day," Kuroo hums, "and you nearly spent most of it in bed and then on breakfast."

Daichi looks at him sidelong. "That's because what you cooked was awful."

"I like to think that it was just about edible," Kuroo argues, pulling Daichi close by the hand. "Besides, you know I usually cook better than this. I was just excited, so I got distracted."

"Because of the mission?"

Kuroo doesn't roll his eyes but he comes close and Daichi bites back a grin as Kuroo leans down to say into his ear, completely shamelessly, "Because of you."

Daichi lets his grin show, turning his face quick to catch Kuroo on the lips. "Thought so."

"Wow, someone's getting full of themselves."

"Only around you. You should be honoured."

"I am." Kuroo grins back, resting his chin on Daichi's shoulder, his eyes dark, soft with affection as he looks up at Daichi. "Immensely so."

\---

The deal goes well.

Karasuno is on fairly good terms with Date, or rather, Daichi is on fairly good terms with Moniwa and not so much with the twin towers looming on either side of him, one brunette and one punk blond. Daichi has done nothing to offend them—nothing they know about, he thinks—but they dislike him and Karasuno on principle because of who they are. Doubly so, because Moniwa has not a mean bone in his body and too much trust for a man of his profession.

Tanaka and Nishinoya are bouncing back and forth between the Karasuno and Date cargo holds, moving crates at a breakneck speed, while Asahi shuttles between the two ships with the same harried expression he wears whenever they are on the job. They have roped in Aone from Date to help, who carries more than all three of them combined and keeps them all ahead of schedule.

"Here you go, Sawamura," Moniwa offers him an unmarked bitcoin as the last crates get stacked onto the Date ship.

"Thank you," Daichi says, taking it from Moniwa and passing it back to Ennoshita, who stands by his shoulder. He gets a light tap on his back after Ennoshita verifies the amount and he smiles at Moniwa pleasantly. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

"Same here," Moniwa says with a genuine smile and the two men beside him look exasperated.

They are gone before Daichi returns to his ship, rushing to catch the 15:00 warp to the outer ends of Saturn's rings. Karasuno, on the other hand, can afford a bit more time than that once they move their ship away from the deal location.

"Be back here by 15:45," Suga reminds the younger crew members as they scamper away to explore. Most of them were born and raised here on Earth and this is their terrain through and through.

The same goes for Daichi, who knows this place like the back of his hand. He grew up here after all, watching the ships fly in and out, picking up and dropping off goods, fuel, people before leaving for their next destination. He had picked this precise spot for their deal with Date, which was just a stone's throw away from Ukai's hangar.

Ukai waits for him by the back door of the hangar, smoke trailing from his cigarette and up into the ventilation systems running high above their heads to be recycled back into their atmosphere. He hasn't changed since the last time Daichi saw him.

"It's been a while," Daichi says as he nears and Ukai grunts in agreement as he leads the way in. Daichi doesn't miss the way Ukai's eyes flick towards him, the same fleeting look on his face as everyone else in his crew.

Ukai stops in front of a spacecraft which looks like it has seen better days, its build boxy and clunky, just big enough to fit one, maybe two people. Daichi knows how to fly this, just like any other space or aircraft he has learnt how to handle while hanging around Ukai's place.

"Thank you for doing this for me, Ukai," Daichi says, lifting the door open and settling his pack on the inside of the spacecraft. It is clean inside, the interior freshly scrubbed by the looks of it. There is a faint scent in the air, the smell of artificial pine that Daichi recognises from the fresheners Ukai uses inside his shop.

"Don't thank me. If I hadn't prepared this for you, you probably would have found some other way to do this." Ukai sighs, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and dropping it to the floor. He crushes it beneath a foot and looks up, awkward and serious all at once as he says, "Look, Daichi, I know I haven't been the best... adult figure around while you were growing up. But just this once, I want you to listen to me when I say you can't just leave your motley crew of hellions like that."

"You said the same thing when I gathered up my motley crew of hellions and left Earth."

"Exactly," Ukai says. "And I was wrong then, but this is different."

Daichi turns away from his inspection of the spacecraft. Ukai hadn't been wrong then in his concern for Daichi and the thirteen strays he gathered up, just like how he isn't wrong now. But Daichi isn't wrong either, and really, wrong or right is just a matter of perspective, a way of calling things that have been done and past. Daichi is tired of waiting, of things passing him by without him doing anything about it. He's tired, he's so tired.

"They're in good hands," Daichi says calmly, taking a step up into the spacecraft.

"In whose hands?" a voice rings out, shrill and angry, and Daichi turns to see Suga marching across the hangar, trailing hellfire in his wake. "My hands?"

Daichi glances over at Ukai and Ukai shrugs, taking a new cigarette out of his pocket. "I told you not to thank me."

Suga stops right before him, his eyes blazing cold as he shoves Daichi in the chest. "What are you doing, Daichi?"

Daichi stumbles, his hand catching on the side of the doorframe to keep him upright. Suga isn't angry, not really. This close, Daichi can see the hurt surface in his silver eyes and beneath it, fear. Suga is panting—he must have run here after Ukai called him, taking the same path as Daichi to reach the hangar, the same one that they've been down together so many times as kids—and Daichi sees his shoulders sag in relief that he had managed to catch Daichi in time.

"I'm going to look for Kuroo," Daichi says. He isn't going to lie to Suga, and it is nothing he wouldn't have discovered in the letter Daichi left behind on the ship for him and the crew.

"No, what I'm asking is why are you leaving?" Suga grabs him by the front of his shirt, his fingers tightening in the material like he's scared that if he lets go, Daichi will vanish. "What, you thought we wouldn't help you if you asked?"

"You would." Daichi straightens up, meeting Suga's gaze steadily. "You all would, and that's why I'm not asking that of you."

"You're our captain, Daichi. You're our _family_ ," Suga says quietly, pleading. "You have to ask this of us."

"You're right," Daichi says, settling a hand over Suga's. Relief floods into Suga's eyes and a smile wavers across his face encouragingly. "But I'm sorry."

\---

"You're leaving now?" Daichi says sleepily, his fingers catching on the back of Kuroo's shirt as he tries to sneak out of bed.

"I have to. Reporting time is at 6." Kuroo tangles his fingers with his, easing Daichi's hand back onto the bed.

Daichi lifts his head to check the clock—it's been barely three hours since they got into bed. He hears the first spray of water hit the tiles as Kuroo turns the shower on, the sound muffled by the door. Daichi's body feels heavy but he drags himself out of bed with sheer willpower, stumbling around until he makes it to the kitchen, taking out pots and pans and plates in the dark until his eyes adjust enough for him to hit the light sensors.

Kuroo finds him sitting facedown at the dining table later, one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee, steaming black and barely touched. Kuroo eases the coffee out of Daichi's hand, making a face at the taste of it before he goes off to dig up his sugar and creamer.

"That's mine," Daichi says accusingly without looking up.

"Not anymore." Kuroo sits across from him, his spoon rattling noisily in his mug.

A minute of silence later, Daichi groans and pushes himself away from the table, fixing himself another mug of coffee with his eyes closed before returning to the table. Kuroo is eating, a grin wide on his face as he watches Daichi prop his head on his hand, trying valiantly to stay awake.

"How's the food?" Daichi grunts, scowling at Kuroo's grin.

"It's instant."

"It's fast. You don't have much time, Mr 'Reporting Time is at 6'."

"It's great. Thanks, Daichi," Kuroo says and Daichi flicks his eyes up to look at him.

Kuroo looks good, as always, despite the shadows under his eyes. He still hasn't found a way to keep his hair down but Daichi supposes that the force doesn't care about hair if you can fly a spacecraft like Kuroo can. He is already in uniform, his jacket folded over the chair next to him, his bag packed and ready to go. Kuroo glances up from his food, catching Daichi watching him, and he smiles.

Kuroo is never awake at this time, even less so than Daichi, and the energy he has now is testament to how nervous he is for his mission. It is a major one, one that has been in planning for a while. Daichi has heard about it in passing on the news and in relative detail from Kuroo. He is happy for him because he knows how much flying means to Kuroo and how much it meant for him to be chosen for this mission. It is, and always has been, his dream.

But there is a pang in Daichi's chest that won't go away when he thinks about the months and months that they are going to spend away from each other. Where Kuroo is going, communication will be near impossible, which means no messages and no silly pictures of Kuroo in his downtime, no contact between Kuroo and him at all. Space is vast and it is in moments like this that Daichi truly understands what that really means.

"Daichi?" A hand reaches across the table, fingers working Daichi's fingers away from his mug. He hadn't realised how hard he had been clenching it, the blood flowing back into his hand as Kuroo rubs a thumb over his knuckles. "Are you worried?"

It would be selfish to say "yes" so Daichi doesn't say it, clenching his jaw shut. He is looking down, his gaze spread far and catching on his coffee, the table, and Kuroo's outstretched arm. He'll be alright in a while if Kuroo gives him the time to put himself back together so that he can tell Kuroo "no, I'm not worried" when he obviously is.

"Guess what?" Kuroo says gently, taking Daichi's hand in his and nudging him to look up at him. And Daichi does, lifting his head reluctantly. Kuroo can probably still see the worry in his eyes, but he smiles, not his usual grins or smirks, as he says, "I am. I'm always worried."

"About the mission?"

"That, and about you." Kuroo brushes his thumb over the lines on Daichi's palm. "You're always travelling in space, meeting with shady people and doing shady things. It's enough to make me go prematurely grey."

"The same goes for you." Daichi chuckles and it comes out a bit watery despite himself.

"We're the same then. Doing dangerous things and worrying about each other doing dangerous things. God, who put the two of us together, Daichi?" Kuroo says laughingly, his eyes bright. "But you know what? You always come back to me in the end, even though you probably see your fair share of hot girls and guys and aliens out there, and I always come back to you. I always will, so don't worry, Daichi."

Daichi inhales shakily, letting the rush of warmth from Kuroo's words sink into him. It isn't fair how eloquent Kuroo is sometimes, how he knows the right things to say at the right times, using his gift for provocation in reverse to settle Daichi down when Daichi is here worrying about him.

Daichi has never been as good at words as Kuroo so he just says, "You better come back. Or I'll go looking for you." It is a warning or a threat, a promise.

"I'm holding you to that." Kuroo's smile widens and he squeezes Daichi's hand tight before he lets go.

It's almost time and Daichi cleans up while Kuroo rushes around the apartment, doing a last minute check of everything he needs before he leaves. They meet again before the door with Kuroo in full uniform and his bag in hand. Daichi leans up, closing the distance between them easily, a distance he's traversed so many times before, his hands sliding into Kuroo's hair as he seals his mouth over his. Kuroo drops his bag, his hands moving over Daichi's waist and locking behind his back, holding him in place.

"I'll be back soon," Kuroo murmurs, his breath warm against Daichi's ear as he disentangles himself from Daichi reluctantly.

Daichi leans his head against Kuroo's shoulder and closes his eyes, his hands digging into Kuroo's back before he lets him go. His throat goes tight as he watches Kuroo gather up his things but he thinks about how much Kuroo deserves this, how much he loves flying, his dream, and Daichi is so proud of him. Daichi lifts his head as Kuroo looks back, sending him off with the best smile he has as he says, "I'll see you when you get back."

Kuroo grins back, bold and excited, ready to take on the great unknown. "Try not to miss me too much, Daichi."

Kuroo leaves on a Monday.

News of him returns on a Tuesday and in the year between that Monday and this Tuesday, Daichi does nothing but miss Kuroo.

\---

 _"Daichi,"_ the radio says in Suga's voice, thin and staticky and tired, _"Daichi, come back to us."_

Daichi breathes in the stale air filling his cockpit, oxygen for one, and looks out of the window. He is surrounded by stars, bright and numerous, some freshly born and some dead for ages. The night stretches out before him, an eternal road leading him out into space. It's beautiful, but he doesn't care, not when he's known so much more.

There are as many names for home as there are for love. Daichi has one back on Earth, his ground control, reaching out to him from millions of miles away through a radio connection stretched thin. And he has one lost among the stars, a drifting astronaut in deep space whose only way back is the string wrapped around Daichi's heart, knotted tight and unbreakable.

"I can't," Daichi says. "Not yet."

**Author's Note:**

> [ _when home isn't a place (but a person)_ ](https://youtu.be/_X5-F36sDK0)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> The quote in the summary is from [jonnysun @ twitter](https://twitter.com/jonnysun/status/517461703630794752).
> 
> Find me here: [tumblr](http://kythen.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/catcrowcalls)
> 
> EDIT: NOW WITH [ABSOLUTELY STUNNING ART BY SEL](http://selpeda.tumblr.com/post/152862232673) PLEASE PLEASE CHECK IT OUT


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